Bringing back Ettrick
VSU, Fort Lee expansions re-energize village's revival
By Katherine Houstoun CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Ettrick is slowly receiving a facelift as developers buy up properties along Chesterfield Avenue and then renovate them.

At the southernmost tip of Chesterfield County sits Ettrick, pop. 7,200. Home to Virginia State University (VSU), Ettrick is quiet, quaint - and in need of a facelift.

Aging homes sit in disrepair, neighborhood streets want for aesthetic improvements, and the village's main thoroughfare, Chesterfield Avenue, could use a fresh influx of economic investment.

Fortunately, change is on the horizon, as the county, university and an active group of Ettrick's citizens are taking steps, individually and in concert, to revitalize the village.

"The county has for many years been working in Ettrick with the citizens of Ettrick," said Tom Jacobson, the county's director of revitalization. "Just recently in the last year or year and a half after the county established the Revitalization Office, we've re-energized our work in Ettrick."

Originally home to Appomattox Indians, Ettrick went through incarnations as a tobacco plantation and a vibrant mill town before industry generally died off at the end of the 19th century. In 1882, the village welcomed Virginia's first state-supported college for African Americans in Virginia State University, an institution that has since provided a source of much-needed stability for the community.

Ettrick is home to Virginia's first state-supported college for African- Americans. Virginia State University was established in 1882.

Today, Ettrick represents one of Chesterfield's most blighted areas, making it, along with Cloverleaf Mall and the Jefferson Davis Highway corridor, a priority for the county's Revitalization Office.

The county's five-year improvement plan for Ettrick, which was adopted in October of 2005, includes six goals: blight removal, housing rehabilitation, streetscape improvements, an elementary school mentoring program, improved relations with VSU and a strengthened neighborhood association. Though advancement is slow, Jacobson said implementation of the plan is underway.

"There's been progress there," he said. "A number of dilapidated houses have come down. We've had significant communication with VSU. There's been a lot of blight removal, which has been kind of a major accomplishment, and getting more developer interest now in terms of the possibilities for commercial uses on Chesterfield Avenue."

Construction is already underway on a new event center and cafeteria at Virginia State University.

Though Chesterfield County has had Ettrick on its revitalization radar for over a decade, the village's revival is now becoming more of a priority. VSU plans to undergo an estimated $418 million campus expansion and double its student population to 10,000 by 2020, while nearby Fort Lee should double its own population over the next few years due to a base realignment by the federal government.

"I just think it has more energy now," Jacobson said. "With VSU being aggressive in terms of its expansion and all of the buzz about Fort Lee and all the needed housing and services, I think that's given a lot of momentum to development in Ettrick."

The county recently brought in a group of local real estate experts to investigate Ettrick's potential for commercial development.

Developers R.L. Dunn and Don Wenzel are currently renovating a dilapidated building on Chesterfield Avenue in Ettrick. When completed, it will house a pizza/sub shop on the ground floor with housing above.

"We were interested in if there is a market for VSU student services, like a coffee house, café, restaurants, t-shirt shops, laundromat - those kinds of things," said Jacobson. The resulting report showed potential for 20,000 square feet of "university-oriented retail."

R.L. Dunn, who owns about a dozen rental properties in Ettrick, is one of the first developers looking to capitalize on the student market. Dunn currently is renovating a Chesterfield Avenue building into a mixed-use establishment with a single-family residence above a pizza/sub shop - sure to appeal to the VSU students living in nearby dorms.

"It'll be within 50 yards of the dorms," said Dunn, who's been investing in Ettrick for almost a decade. "The surveys I've done of the college kids [indicate] they're very excited about it."

Having local businesses that provide services and amenities to VSU students makes sense to Morris Starks, 50, an Ettrick business owner and a member of the Ettrick Neighborhood and Business Foundation.

"The kids have to go to Colonial Heights to buy their lunch or midnight snack or whatever," he said. "That revenue should stay in Ettrick instead of going somewhere else."

Established in 2001, the six-member foundation is hoping to impact the community in small, but significant ways. Having bought, renovated and sold an unoccupied building on Chesterfield Avenue, the foundation is using the sale's profits to benefit Ettrick citizens.

"All of the monies are going to be put right back into the community in some form or fashion, whether it's education or beautification," said Larry Belcher, 74, the foundation's president and a lifelong Ettrick resident. "If there's a home that needs painting or a porch or a ramp, we could help in that situation…We just want to make Ettrick a better place to live, beautify it, get more homeownership and play a part in whatever the county is planning to do."